Beauty

Margot Robbie's Oscars Dress Took Over 600 Hours to Create

Best Actress nominee, Margot Robbie, has been on a fashion roadshow since I, Tonya’s press tour began almost a full year ago. Truth be told, we shouldn’t be shocked. She has stylist Kate Young at her side, who’s been responsible for chic-ifying actresses and musicians like Selena Gomez, Dakota Johnson, and Michelle Williams.

Brad Goreski guessed it right when he predicted Robbie would wear Chanel on the red carpet tonight. And wear Chanel she did!

Robbie wore a custom Chanel Haute Couture dress made by Karl Lagerfeld (yes, somewhere in the middle of designing his Fall 2018 collections for Fendi and Chanel he found time to create an Oscar’s gown). The corseted gown had top stitched georgette draped on the arms and a bodice embroidered with a 3-D band of crystal tubes and rounded garland neckline adorned with two 3-D camellias in crystal tube embroidery. (Ed note: camellias were Coco Chanel’s favourite flowers.)

“The embroidery,” Kate Young told us over the phone, “I like it because it’s futurist. Embroidery can sometimes feel “old lady” to me and I wanted it to be embroidered, but feel cool.”

And in case you need your eyes checked and you couldn’t tell from looking at the dress, the creation was no easy feat to make. The corsage and strap embroidery required 550 hours of work and FOURTEEN fashion hands (that’s 70 FINGERS!) and the assembly of the dress itself took an additional 130 hours.

“I never want the dress to feel like a costume,” Young says. “The thing about having couture is that it’s made for you and for your body. Even though it’s fancy, it’s comfortable and easy. And I wanted to reflect that. I didn’t want her to look trussed up and bedazzled. I wanted her to look real and elegant.”

She topped off the dress with Chanel Fine Jewelry (because when you’re wearing a Chanel Couture dress, what else would you wear jewelry-wise): The “Maud” ring, “Comète” and “Coco Crush” earrings in 18-K white gold and diamonds.

“I originally pulled all these amazing diamonds from Chanel,” Young says. “They have all these crazy good stones that are timeless and elegant and big and sparkly. But when we put the big earrings on, with the embroidery, it didn’t feel right. We changed it to a much smaller, more personal diamond that she actually owns—these little huggie earrings and Chanel diamond star.